Reporting on the extraordinary turnout for the “Rosary on the Borders” prayer campaign in Poland, the Associated Press (AP) suggested that the event smacked of “a problematic expression of Islamophobia.”

On-the-ground sources said that over a million Poles turned out Saturday to pray the rosary along the country’s 2,000-mile border for the salvation of their country.

According to the spokesman for the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Father Pawel Rytel-Andrianik, the event drew “millions of people” to pray the rosary together and was the second-largest prayer event ever held in Europe, after the 2016 World Youth Day. […]

The AP warned that Saturday’s national event, which was endorsed by Polish church authorities, had “anti-Muslim overtones.”

Citing an “expert on xenophobia,” the AP said that the border prayer event “reinforces the ethno-religious, xenophobic model of national identity,” and represents a “problematic expression of Islamophobia” in the country.